Jeremiah 25:10-20

10 I will silence the sounds of joy and laughter and the voices of the bride and the bridegroom. Yes, I will silence the millstones and snuff out the lamplight.

11 This whole country will be reduced to a wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.

12 When the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation for their wrongdoing, declares the LORD. I will reduce the land of the Babylonians to a wasteland for all time.

13 I will unleash upon that land everything I decreed, all that is written in this scroll, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations.

14 Yes, many great nations and powerful kings will enslave them, and I will pay them back in full for what they have done and made with their hands.

15 This is what the LORD, God of Israel, said to me: Take this seething cup of wine from my hand and make all the nations gulp it down where I'm sending you.

16 They will drink and stagger about half-crazed because of the sword that I am sending against them.

17 So I took the cup from the LORD's hand, and I made all the nations drink from it where the LORD had sent me:

18 Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials. This was to make them a wasteland, an object of horror, shock, and cursing, as it is today;

19 Pharaoh, Egypt's king, his attendants and officials, and all his people,

20 including the foreigners living there; all the kings of the land of Uz; all the kings of the land of the Philistines—Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and what's left of Ashdod;

Jeremiah 25:10-20 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 25

This chapter contains a prophecy of the destruction of Judea by the king of Babylon; and also of Babylon itself, after the Jews' captivity of seventy years; and likewise of all the nations round about. The date of this prophecy is in Jer 25:1; when the prophet puts the Jews in mind of the prophecies that had been delivered unto them by himself and others, for some years past, without effect, Jer 25:2-7; wherefore they are threatened with the king of Babylon, that he should come against them, and strip them of all their desirable things; make their land desolate, and them captives for seventy years, Jer 25:8-11; at the expiration of which he in his turn shall be punished, and the land of Chaldea laid waste, and become subject to other nations and kings, Jer 25:12-14; and by a cup of wine given to all the nations round about, is signified the utter ruin of them, and who are particularly mentioned by name, Jer 25:15-26; which is confirmed by beginning with the city of Jerusalem, and the destruction of that, Jer 25:27-29; wherefore the prophet is bid to prophesy against them, and to declare the Lord's controversy with them, and that there should be a slaughter of them from one end of the earth to the other, Jer 25:30-33; upon which the shepherds, kings, and rulers of them, are called to lamentation and howling, Jer 25:34-38.

Footnotes

• [a] Heb uncertain